


An Attempt at Mending the Shattered

by TheDarkMetalLady



Series: Fading Embers [3]
Category: Gloryhammer (Band)
Genre: Angst, Gen, May include character death, Sad, Spinoff, Suspense, gloryhammer what if challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-31 02:04:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21044201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkMetalLady/pseuds/TheDarkMetalLady
Summary: His dream was the nightmare given shape; his reality was the nightmare given force.A spin-off of Room of Remembrance and Lost Humanity. Written for EbonyDraygon's Gloryhammer What If? Challenge.





	An Attempt at Mending the Shattered

**Author's Note:**

> If you have not read Room of Remembrance or Lost Humanity, read those before reading this. Else, you might be very confused. 
> 
> This story is not for the faint of heart. 
> 
> I do not own the Gloryhammer characters. Please note that this story is about the _characters represented by the band_ and **not** about the band members themselves.

“Ralathor?”

“Ralathor!”

“Ralathor, wake up!”

Something cold suddenly splashed into the submarine commander’s face, and he woke up with the addition of throwing a punch, one that missed its blind mark and instead ended up grabbing a long, hairy rope on the return. 

“...can you let go?” the Hootsman asked, dark worried gaze meeting Ralathor’s confused grey one. 

Ralathor instantly let go of the barbarian’s beard, saying something that was meant to be an apology but came out a bit mumbled by accident. 

“How’s your head?” the Hootsman asked.

“Fine,” Ralathor said. After a moment, he added. “Hurts.”

“Given you must have hit your noggin hard enough to knock yourself out, I’d believe it,” the Hootsman said. “I don’t know how long you were out, but you were gone long enough for the princess to worry. Are you dizzy?”

“A little,” the commander admitted. He was a bit slow, mind trying to catch up with everything. What had he been doing that could have caused him to hit his head? He remembered return to Dundee with Hoots after the battle, then them splitting up and--

He froze. He remembered. 

He sat up suddenly, startling the barbarian. He looked around. 

The bed was unmade and had a pile of dirty laundry shoved half-way under it; the desk was a mess of papers, writing utensils, and the occasional dining room silverware; an empty armor stand in the corner had a pair of pants slung over it; there were even some training weapons scattered about on the floor and various surfaces, most notably--

He scrambled to his feet, or tried to, at least, panic gripping him. His balance wasn’t cooperating, however, and he would have fallen back and hit his head against the desk behind him had the Hootsman not reacted swiftly and grabbed him before he could get hurt. He was breathing heavily, unable to calm himself. He was dimly aware of the Hootsman saying something, but couldn’t focus on what. He tried to say something himself, too, but couldn’t communicate it. 

At one point, he was set down on the floor carefully. The Hootsman must have followed his gaze, for a moment later, the barbarian stepped towards the mirror. Ralathor wanted to call out, to warn his old friend, but no sound left his lips. He watched in fear as the Hootsman examined the mirror, the barbarian’s expression displaying confusion in the reflection Ralathor saw. The Hootsman turned to look at Ralathor a moment, then looked at the mirror again. 

Then, he pulled the weapon at the top of the mirror off and walked back over where Ralathor was on the ground, examining the dagger. As the Hootsman approached, Ralathor calmed and became a bit more confused. The blade of the dagger was silver, not blackened. 

It wasn’t the Knife of Evil.

It was just… a dagger. The typical, standard issue type every member of the Hootsforce had, usually strapped to their boot or something. 

What?

Any further thoughts were cut off by a sudden wave of nausea. In a burst of efficiency only the Hootsman was capable of, the barbarian had procured a trash can (Ralathor hadn’t even seen one in the room when he looked around) so that Ralathor didn’t empty the contents of his stomach onto the floor. Despite the barbarian’s flaws, he was a good friend to have, and Ralathor was very thankful for the demigod warrior, especially in moments like these, while the Hootsman held Ralathor’s hair back and stayed by his side even now. 

Once Ralathor’s stomach was done protesting, the Hootsman went and placed the garbage can outside the room before walking back to Ralathor’s side. The horrendous squeal of the door hinges was equal parts terrible and comforting to Ralathor, for it reassured him that the Hootsman was not far. In the meantime, Ralathor picked up the dagger, which the Hootsman had placed down when focused on helping his sick ally. It looked absolutely normal, and that was maddening; how could it be normal? It shouldn’t be. He knew what he did; this dagger shouldn’t exist in the first place, much less be normal. Had he failed, then? Was that cursed blade still in existence, hiding elsewhere now, ready to ruin more lives?

“Ralathor,” the Hootsman spoke, his voice grave enough that it was cause for immediate attention. The barbarian didn’t often do deadly serious tones. “I am going to pick you up and carry you to the infirmary.”

“I can walk,” Ralathor tried to protest, not necessarily wanting to be carried. He knew the barbarian probably wouldn’t drop him, but it was a certain sign of helpless weakness, one that an immortal like him should not possess. He was better than this, damn it; he didn’t need to be helped as if he were a teenager. And so, he put down the dagger on the floor and tried to get up. (He didn’t get far. He was weak, too weak to do anything trivial, much less something important.)

The Hootsman raised an eyebrow at the submarine commander. “Physically alone, I’d doubt it, and I fear for your state of mind, old friend.” He unceremoniously picked up Ralathor like the hermit weighed as much as a single book rather than an actual person and began to walk out of the room with quick but even steps, careful not to jostle his friend too much. He also expertly ignored any thrown threats or insults while carrying Ralathor out, though he did give a harsh glare when he felt a tug on his beard.

Ralathor gave up after a minute, letting go of the Hootsman’s beard with a small huff as they exited the mostly-empty residential hall and instead went into the more populated corridors that connected different workstations and had people bustling about, trying to figure out who lived and who had been led to their deaths by Ralathor. Best not to make this any worse a scene than it was already. Besides, his head hurt. Maybe he could just close his eyes and--

“Ralathor.”

“What?” The hermit grunted, opening his eyes. His grey glare made it known he was not happy with the disturbance; he did not shy away from looking the barbarian straight in the eyes while possessing the expression of a cat that was planning a mass murder of its human overlords.

“Stay awake.”

“Why?” He knew why; it just seemed like too much effort.

“I’m not letting you die on me. We lost too many already.” There was a certain sadness and worry to the Hootsman’s voice, one that Ralathor found himself caring little for.  _ We lost too many because of me; what’s another splatter of blood on my hands? May it be my own. _

“Then walk faster…” Ralathor’s words got a bit slurred near the end, and the world stopped making so much sense. Perhaps that was for the better -- the second part that had been left unsaid wouldn’t have helped his situation much. If anything, it would have only increased tensions between him and the barbarian, given that it would have been along the lines of the comment he could have sworn he had said somewhere:  _ a king incapable of saving his kingdom or showing up early enough to save his friends, thinks he can save the already damned. _

Those were just details, though, and not particularly important ones.

Just as darkness threatened to swallow his vision whole, he suddenly saw something -- a flash of green. Immediately, he became alert, a sudden burst of adrenaline aiding him in trying to get out of the Hootsman’s tight grip. He wanted to look past and behind them and find out what that green flash had been, but his strength failed him quickly and he fell limp. He resigned himself to his fate, for if the green shadow was the nightmare come alive and here to finish what it had started, then Ralathor had no way of fighting it off this time. (Even if he could, would he?)

Next thing he knew, they were in the infirmary, and Ralathor was being put on a bed and handed off to a bunch of doctors with needles and other tools he did not care to examine in any more detail than he had to. A prick in his arm, something put over his face, annoying beeps that seemed to ring in his ears, monotonic chattering everywhere, and a very uncomfortable bed to top it all off. He remembered why he hated being in the infirmary. 

He shifted slightly when he felt one of the doctors touched his hair. He wanted to yell at them to stop touching it, though why he wanted to was a matter his mind was split over. Part of him was angry that anyone dared touch his hair, the same hair he had tended to for centuries so that it would look good. The other part of him remembered the current state of his hair and wanted to yell at the doctors to stop touching it because of how repulsive it was. Either way, he did exactly neither of those; he tried, but his throat refused to work. 

He grunted slightly when one of the doctors pushed down on a spot that was acutely painful relative to the rest.  _ Watch where you’re putting your grubby hands, mortal. _ At that thought, there was some noise around him, but it also meant that there was no one poking around at his head through his hair, which made things marginally better. Then, the noise and yelling got louder, joined by an obnoxiously distinctive shout that Ralathor had the misfortune of having heard many times over the centuries. He wanted to tell them all to go away, to just stop hearing this cacophony, especially when that god-awful solid and never-ending tone rang out to join the grotesque choir that assaulted his ears, its pitch high like a soprano being tortured with the endless pain of becoming trapped in a destabilized dimension. 

Then everything went dark once more, and he was blessed with silence.

**Author's Note:**

> **The end?**
> 
> Want to see some of my other works or request a story? Check out my tumblr [here](https://thedarkmetallady.tumblr.com/) and my prompt and request rules [here](https://thedarkmetallady.tumblr.com/PromptAndRequestRules).


End file.
